Dongtai Cloth Shoes Shop (東台布鞋莊) is hidden within an alley of the Chengzhong Open-Air Market (城中市場) off Wuchang Street (武昌街).
TaiwanScene is going to show you how this particular shoe shop mesmerizes tourists, embroiders new ideas on shoe uppers, and custom-made comfort to bring in swarms of orders.

Ximen is one of those neighborhoods that almost every visitor to Taipei ventures into. The casual visitor’s first impression after ascending from the MRT is a sea of bright lights cascading into a large pedestrian shopping area packed with thousands of people out for an evening stroll, on their way to see a film, go shopping or have dinner.

ost people visiting the northernmost tip of Taiwan come to see Jiufen or Jinguashi, two of the area’s most popular tourist destinations. Few take the time to visit the monument lying just a few minute’s walk from Jinguashi marking the site of Kinkaseki, one of the most notorious Japanese POW camps of WW2.

Not long ago, when news of rich and powerful men finally being called to account – dethroned as a comeuppance for sexually predatory behavior – was still rolling in, my friend Darice Dan Chang wrote about how the movement had barely touched Taiwan. Although I’m usually upbeat about life in Taiwan as a woman compared to the rest of Asia, she had a point.

Though the form for which the island is named is readily apparent from angles further north and south, from Toucheng pier due west, Turtle Island looks more slug-like than terrapin-shaped. A small and curving rock covered in green, the island – like all points on the horizon – grows larger and more distinctive as our boat draws closer. There are about sixty people on the Blue Whale, all wearing bright orange life jackets and hoping to catch a glimpse of the dolphins sometimes spotted frolicking around the island. The boat takes its time along the island’s southern end, a steep hill dotted with carved outcroppings.

Everyone in Taiwan knows of the Golden Gate. No, not the bridge. Taiwan has its very own Golden Gate, an archipelago directly off the China mainland. For historical reasons the official transliteration of the “golden gate” characters is “Kinmen,” rather than the standard-use Hanyu Pinyin “Jinmen.”